Howard dully stepmother and daughter
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My Lobotomy: A Memoir
About this audiobook
A gut-wrenching memoir by a man who was lobotomized at the age of twelve. Assisted by journalist/novelist Charles Fleming, Howard Dully recounts a family tragedy whose Sophoclean proportions he could only sketch in his powerful 2005 broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered. "In 1960," he writes, "I was given a transorbital, or 'ice pick' lobotomy. My stepmother arranged it. My father agreed to it. Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of the American lobotomy, told me he was going to do some 'tests.' It took ten minutes and cost two hundred dollars." Fellow doctors called Freeman's technique barbaric: an ice pick-like instrument was inserted about three inches into each eye socket and twirled to sever connections from the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain. The procedure was intended to help curb a variety of psychoses by muting emotional responses, but sometimes it irreversibly reduced patie
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He was bad, so they put an ice pick in his brain...
When Howard Dully met the man who was to change his life for ever, he was not sure what to make of him. He was 11 at the time and paid little attention to the mysterious adult world that surrounded him, to the decisions taken without his knowledge or to the profound impact that Dr Walter Freeman would have on his pre-adolescent existence. Instead, with a child's eye, he noticed the small physical quirks - the round-rimmed glasses, the dapper suit, the well-trimmed goatee. 'It made him look a little like a beatnik,' Dully says. 'He was warm, personable and easy to get along with. Was I fearful? No. inom had no idea what he was going to do with me.'
Dully was a withdrawn boy who liked riding his bicycle and playing chess. He occasionally fought with his brother, disobeyed his parents and stole sweets from the kitchen cupboards. He had a weekly paper round and was saving up to buy a record player. According to Dr Freeman's meticulous r
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My Lobotomy: A Memoir
I'm into doo-wop music, travel and photography. I'm also a survivor: In 1960, when I was
twelve years old, I was given a trans orbital or 'icepick' lobotomy. My stepmother arranged
it. My father agreed to it. Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of American lobotomy, told me he
was going to do some 'tests'. It took ten minutes and cost two hundred dollars. The surgery
damaged me in many ways...."
There are events that occur over the course of a lifetime in which people, upon reflection, describe as life-altering. In this memoir, 'My Lobotomy', Howard Dully (with the assistance of journalist Charles Fleming), describes such an event. In 1960, when Howard was 12-years-old, he was taken to a California hospital by his stepmother Lou and his father Rodney Dully and was given an 'icepick' lobotomy by Dr. Walter Freeman. To attempt to fully describe the im